HTC One SV vs Nokia Lumia 820

We compare two mid-range 4G-capable smartphones with Nokia’s Lumia 820 taking on HTC’s Android-powered One SV.

Form

HTC One SV - 128x66.9x9.2mm, 122g

Nokia Lumia 820 - 123.8x68.5x9.9mm, 160g

The HTC One SV shares some design similarities with the rest of the One range but there are a few tweaks to the style which make it quite unique.

The handset has a neatly contoured unibody made from a soft-touch material with a premium-feel. Its shape is a bit more rounded than HTC’s recent handsets and although it’s no thicker than 9.2mm it’s noticeably thinner in the middle than at either end, creating an interesting profile.

As is usually the case with HTC hardware, we expect the One SV to have excellent build quality.

Nokia’s Lumia 820 is no less impressive, it’s remarkably robust for a device with a removable back panel and it fits together very well indeed.

The 820 back panels come in a variety of different colours and there are functional variants, such as one which allows wireless charging and another which is reinforced.

The shape is more squared-off than its opponent, but it’s got softer corners than other premium Lumia phones and generally there’s a nice balance between angular and curvy.

We can’t really choose a winner here, both are very well put together and follow very different but very well-executed aesthetic styles.

Winner - Draw

Display

The One SV has a 4.3-inch Super LCD2 with an 800x480 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 217 pixels-per-inch (ppi). SLCD2 technology tends to provide good visual quality and the pixel density should mean things are quite sharp.

Nokia’s Lumia 820 also uses a 4.3-inch touchscreen at the same resolution and pixel density, but this one’s an AMOLED with Nokia’s ClearBlack technology.

This should mean a similar level of picture quality in terms of sharpness (though text might not be quite as clear), but richer colours and truer blacks.

Overall both devices are on a fairly equal footing here.

Winner – Draw

Storage

Both handsets come with 8GB of built-in storage space and microSD capability. However, where the HTC One SV can take cards up to 32GB the Lumia 820 can support high-capacity cards up to 64GB.

Winner – Nokia Lumia 820